Hygienic pads, such as sanitary napkins and incontinence pads are usually designed to be symmetrical in configuration and of greater lengthwise than transverse dimension.
There have been some attempts to design such pads to provide a better contoured fit in the perineal area. One of the difficulties in attempting to design such a pad is that women have an almost infinite variety of body shape and muscle tone in the upper thigh region, and therefore, pads which provide superior comfort and protection for some women due to their configuration, may actually be deficient in these characteristics when worn by women of a different body type.
It has also been recognized that a certain percentage of the female population have extremely heavy flow during portions of the menstrual cycle. In addition, most women have heavy menstrual discharge early in the morning due to the retention of menses during sleep and at sudden discharge upon awakening.
Women have tried a variety of means to prevent staining and spotting during these heavy flow times. Some combine protection means such as using a tampon with a maxi-pad, or they will stack two pads. The latter has proven to be ineffective because only a small amount of the overflow from the top pad will reach the bottom pad and depending upon the positioning of the bottom pad very little will contact it due to the presence of the fluid impermeable baffle on the bottom of the first pad. Incontinence pads also are designed to be worn by the average user although, due to the nature of incontinence, there are a large variety of shapes and configurations available.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,683,457 describes the sanitary napkin having a recessed area positioned in the center, which is designed to receive a separate padlet positioned in the approximate center of the napkin. When the padlet is in place, the sanitary napkin is somewhat thicker in the center than on either end, but it is otherwise essentially of conventional configuration.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,771,882 discloses a flat hygienic pad that is designed to be segmented and each segment formed in a U-shaped configuration which is then used instead of tampon.